I attended the Jonathan Lewis Unconference presentation on how to be an Oracle expert. It was all really quite interesting and raised a number of points that made one ponder. He asked for example what was the Oracle release that introduced the most significant change. See if you can come up with the same answer he gave (which after thinking about it is probably correct).

Later attended a general presentation that covered both 11g Release 2 and the new OLTP Database Machine Version 2. Usual marketing hype, much of which was already covered during the launch presentations. Discussed features such as RAC One, tiered storage partitioning options and advanced compression which are all certainly on my list of things to investigate.

Caught up with Gareth Llewellyn who mentioned the new OJAM Red Room website that has lots of Oracle information and OpenWorld insights, with an Aussie / NZ emphasis.

After lunch, spent some time in the exhibition hall, stocking up on t-shirts, assorted pens and rubber ducks 🙂

Attended Jonathan Lewis’s other presentation on hints on hints. Again excellent, picking up a number of useful little tips, especially the full potential of the qb_name hint. I think he summarised things nicely when he recommended:

1) Don’t use them
2) If you ignore recommendation 1, then be very very careful and precise when using hints

He also explained very nicely the myth that hints can be “ignored” by the CBO when he asked a poor soul from the audience to take off a jacket which he wasn’t wearing. He obviously didn’t perform what was asked of him as it wasn’t possible but did he actually ignore the request …

Later had a nice chat with Jonathan in the OTN lounge, exchanging thoughts mutual acquaintances we unfortunately know and the beauty and magic of Oxford City.

Finally attended the Battle of the DBAs Version 2 presentation which attempted to demo the potential productivity improvements when using the new EM capabilities and features. I don’t think they quite pulled it off but certainly highlighted that EM has some very nice features.

My mission tomorrow is to find out why they’re serving at the conference Seattle’s finest coffee here in San Francisco 🙂

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“what was the Oracle release that introduced the most significant change?”

I would say version 4 with read consistency. It’s what sets Oracle apart, and what so much later functionality is based on, from hot backups to flashback technology to Total Recall to Active DataGuard…

I would agree with Stew (darn him for getting his comment in first). I used (I think) version 2 in 1982/3, then nothing much until I joined Oracle in 86 with v5.1.

Behind V4 and read consistency I’d vote for version 6 which amintroduced PL/SQL into the server (and V7 which supported stored PL/SQL). Think how much capability has been introduced to Oracle as PL/SQL packages – even if later it’s been recoded in C: AQ, Replication, LOB support, UTL_FILE, XML functions, yada yada.